A Note on Sogdian Coroplastics:
Two Ossuary Fragments from Afrasiab

A few words about Boris Marshak

"Marshak takes the most plain common material which
everybody kicked around for ages and by some magic trick turns it
into a truly magnificent historical source." This perfect
description of the most important aspect of Boris Marshak’s
scholarly personality belongs to Vladimir Livshits, who dropped
it during our rather casual chat on a dusty lane of Khivan
Ichan-qaleh in 1997.

On a less romantic and more scholarly plane, however, the
words "magic trick" have to be substituted by
"research methodology." Indeed, Marshak belongs to
the generation of scholars that was very much aware of the
methodological challenges posed by the great advancement of
positivist studies in both archaeology and art history. This was
the generation that by and large turned to the statistically
significant quantities of regular plain materials and tried to
transform these unimpressive artifacts into historical sources of
the first class.

Yet Marshak stands out even among the scholars of his
generation as a person who preoccupied himself with the
methodological issues, for he enhanced analytical techniques in
the study of virtually every artistic medium and every category
of material culture, that happened to become a subject of his
investigation. To be sure, Marshak is by no mean a theoretician
who tries to solve ontological problems of archeology as a
sciencia or to advance archaeological terminology, but
rather very practical scholar who preoccupied himself with the
development of standard algorithms applicable to various
categories of artefacts and art objects.

To start with, Marshak was one of the two archaeologists (the
other one was his senior colleague Oleg Bol’shakov) who in
the late 1950s early 1960s led the local scale
"revolution" in the famous Penjikent expedition. It
resulted not only in significant improvements in excavation
techniques,1 but in a new approach to the
interpretation of data as well. This local
"revolution" broke the then existing perception of
Panjikant as a "single-stratum monument" and finally
led to the study of the history of this étalon site
as a sequence of chronological cross-sections sliced by the
several contemporary events which were known to affect seriously
the town or Sogdian society in general. It was this new, truly
historical approach that turned the murals of Panjikant into the
best dated Central Asian paintings, that allowed for the
attribution of quite a few Sogdian coin series to particular time
periods, that brought a new understanding of the social
stratification and social dynamics of the Early Medieval Sogdian
city, and altogether brought Sogdian archaeology to a new
level.2

In addition to his part in the development of the new detailed
chronology of the monuments dated to the 7th and
8th century, Marshak did a magnificent work on the
pottery from the so called lower stratum of Panjikant (5th to the
first half of the 7th century). I honestly believe that this work
still remains (40 years later!) the most methodologically
advanced study of Central Asian pre-Islamic ceramics ever
done.3 One aspect of it makes it
stand out among all the contemporary studies involving
statistical applications - it actually attempts to formalize the
approach to the individual factor by involving such important
categories of analysis as the master (individual craftsmen) and
the school (tradition). Unfortunately, except for the formalized
code for the description of the pottery,4 this work remains
unpublished in its final, advanced form, so that students of
Sogdian ceramics are still forced to refer to several separate
intermediary studies, that neither cover the entire bulk of the
used materials nor exhaust the variety of methods utilized and
developed within this project.5

A side outcome of this work with pottery was Marshak’s
participation in a joint project with the two other most
innovative "Soviet" archaeologists of the time,
Kamenetskii and Sher. The three of them published a wonderful
manual "Analysis of Archaeological Sources", which
actually became the first Russian monographic work promoting and
developing the ideas consonant (but not identical) with those of
the New Archaeology.6 Published in a ridiculously
small edition this book immediately became a bibliographic rarity
even in the former Soviet Union; and despite its obvious merit,
it had almost no impact on western literature of this sort (to
the best of my knowledge), with the single exception of
"System of Analytical Archaeography," by Iaroslav
Malina.7 In Russia, however, it was
well known and widely used. I remember how reading of this book
(which was not, by the way, an assigned reading in any of the
courses) became a must for the students of the archaeological
department of Moscow University who were interested in the new
analytical methods, and what efforts we made to obtain a copy in
the still pre-Xerox era of Soviet history when I studied.

I allow myself to omit here a discussion of Marshak’s
exploits in the field of oriental toreutics - both the specific
studies and his method of building stemmata based on the study of
the lines of mechanical reproduction are known much wider,
especially after the publication of the "Silberschätze
des Oreints"8 - a version of his
habilitation dissertation developed from the earlier brilliant
book on Sogdian silver plate.9

Marshak’s numerous studies in Sogdian paintings and in
Sogdian iconography in general look more traditional and less
technical, but they also involve a highly of formalized approach
on one side and a lot of non-traditional thinking on the other.
This became very obvious with Marshak’s very first works in
this field. Once more I would like to site an opinion of a major
scholar who closely worked with Marshak. In the spring of 1991 I
visited long retired Alexander Belenitskii, director of the
Panjikant expedition from 1954 and until 1977, when he passed the
reins of government to Marshak. The old man was in a good mood,
and shared with me some memories about the "past
times" with the wonderful kind smile of a dignified senior
scholar. Among other things we talked about his works on Sogdian
paintings, and when I mentioned his joint articles10 and a huge
section in the book on Sogdian paintings which he wrote jointly
with Marshak,11 the old man said:
"These were already more Boris’ work than mine. It is
perfectly clear from the absolutely different and innovative
approach which is employed in them." Indeed, in these
studies Marshak principally shifted the weight given to the
different aspects of the problem - he made the questions of
attribution his main priority, and, using the unique
opportunities of archaeological dating provided by the long-term
stationary excavations of Panjikant, elaborated a chronological
sequence of paintings that for the first time allowed him to talk
authoritatively about the evolution of the style, the development
in the range of subjects, etc. etc.12 Altogether, Marshak raised
our understanding of the development of Sogdian paintings and
Sogdian art in general to a higher level,13 and opened new avenues
for advanced fundamental research in the field of Sogdian
iconography.14

One can also say that the last decades of Marshak-led
excavations in Panjikant have turned Sogdian paintings into a
truly historical source - meticulous recording and advanced
understanding of the archaeological contexts of the paintings
opened opportunities for the cultural-sociological analysis of
this rich pictorial material. Given the volume of data obtained,
one can say that paintings turned into a mass material that can
be studied with the help of almost statistical
methods.15

Marshak’s study of Sogdian terracotta

It is very difficult, if possible at all, to list all the
achievements of such a versatile scholar as Boris Marshak, and I
certainly do not plan to do it here. Yet, my own little research
piece with which I would like to honor Boris Marshak in
accordance to the rules of the Festschrift genre, has grown out
of and is actually a reaction to another methodologically
important study by Boris Marshak, which for a long time remained
mostly unknown to the wider circles of specialists in Central
Asian art and archaeology. I mean Marshak’s study of
Sogdian molded terracotta figurines of horsemen. Since the
results of this study were presented only in an abstract of the
paper delivered at the all-Union archaeological session in
1972,16 i.e. in a volume which is
virtually unobtainable in the West and which is hard to find
nowadays even in the Soviet Union, I have allowed myself to
translate it here in full with the sole omission of the first
paragraph, devoted to the now irrelevant organizational framework
of the never completed project:

"2. The talk discusses the methodological aspects of the
study of Sogdian terracotta using as an example the group of
"molded horsemen figurines" of the 7th-8th century
(88 specimens in the collection of the State Hermitage
Museum).

3. Figurines of different sizes often reproduced each
other’s appearance, repeating even the defects that owed
their origin to a mere chance. This fact can be explained in the
following way: the porter who had no molds for production [of
figurines - AN], pressed a [purchased - AN] figurine [made by
another porter - AN] against a lump of clay, and then dried and
fired the mold obtained by this operation, subsequently using the
latter while producing [his own- AN] statuettes. The drying up
and the firing shrinkage were responsible for a 1% to 12%
contraction in the size of each clay manufacture: the differences
in linear dimensions of figurines, which reach a maximum of 1/3
among the specimens of our museum collection, could appear within
two-three "generations" of the terracotta
figurines.

4. Potters were unable to manufacture new [high quality - AN]
matrices. They preferred to reproduce even defective and unclear
molds, genetically connected to several [original - AN] works, by
professional sculptors. Sometimes potters corrected figures and
molds. The corrected figurines have altered faces and
headdresses, usually characterized by low relief and crude
modeling. The corrections on the molds are responsible for a
harsh relief and slipshod modeling which gives an impression of a
"grotesque." The originals of the mechanically
reproduced, corrected figurines could then be recognized by the
shapes of their hands and bodies.17

5. The mass production of the terracottas involved an only
rare and occasional influx of new sculptures. Series formed by
the dozens of specimens belonging to at least four-five
"generations" can be traced back to one original
sculpture. Under these circumstances, coroplastics could not
become a profession. The originals were produced now and then by
sculptors of wide specialization. This explains the stylistic
monumentality of the best terracotta samples, as well as the
neglect of the specific requirements of molded terracotta as an
artistic medium, which can be seen on the best figurines as
well.

6. The questions related to the meaning of the attributes, to
the nature of portrait and to the physical anthropological type
of the depicted people, as well as about the style of the
terracottas, should be re-examined, as now we do not have, at
least for the 7th and 8th centuries, a rich
variety of small sculptures produced in one center, but rather
fifteen or so different originals and their multiple replicas.
Finally, the catalogue descriptions should be now done now in
different way, so that the properties which reflect the place of
the figurine in the series, may be comprehensively
recorded."18

To be sure, Marshak was not the first to suggest that the true
historical approach to the molded terracotta should be based on
the study of such genetic lines. The importance of the
reproduction lines had been noticed already in the
19th century,19 while in 1941 Jastrow
insisted on the absolute methodological necessity of working with
them.20 In early the 1950s, the book
on pre-Tanagrian terracotta by Neutch,21 the methodological
aspects of which were "translated" into English and
enhanced by Nichols22 laid out the main principles
of such studies. It should be, however, noted that by the 1960s
this research "algorithm" was still not extensively
employed in the studies of classical terracotta, and the major
"representative" publications such as for example the
otherwise quite comprehensive handbook on Greek terracotta by
Higgins, made no mention of it at all.23 Consequently, this
research method was practically absent from the Russian scholarly
literature - no single study devoted to the figurines from the
Greek and Roman settlements of the Northern coast of the Black
Sea has ever utilized it, although it has been mentioned by some
general Russian works devoted to Greek terracotta.24 Needless to
say, this method remained absolutely unknown in both the art
history and archaeology of Central Asia,25 which in the
1960s-early 1970s still retained a certain soupçon of
provinciality even by the standards of the former Soviet
Union.

In other words, Marshak’s discovery of this method in
the study of terracotta figurines was something of a re-invention
of the wheel in an uninformed, remote part of the world. Yet in
some respects Marshak developed a better tool than the one
elaborated earlier in the parallel universe of classical studies.
Besides the practical results with the study of the horsemen
figurines, one definite improvement were Marshak’s
observations on the differences produced by the two types of
alterations and clarifications made by potters: (1) retouching of
the matrix (the negative image), and (2) alterations of the
figurines that could eventually become "patrices"
(the positive image) for the production of further matrices.
Likewise, Marshak isolated the formal property (the shape of the
shadow in the armpit depression), which could allow scholars to
arrange terracotta figurines in stemmata.26 Even if we would leave
aside the question of priority in the invention of the method as
such, Marshak should be credited with its first application to
the study of Sogdian and Central Asian terracotta.

Unfortunately, Marshak’s study had rather limited impact
on the field. Taking into consideration that his work has not
been properly published, and the relative
"complexity" of the suggested research algorithm as
well as the burdening necessity to study all known
terracottas belonging to eachstemma, it is easy to
understand why the majority of scholars who published on Sogdian
terracottas preferred to ignore Marshak’s research
method.27 Besides Marshak’s own
later works touching upon the terracotta theme,28 this method
was taken into consideration by only a few Central Asian scholars
who personally worked with Marshak,29 and then by those who worked
with them.30 Recently, however, the
importance of Marshak’s contribution has been, finally
recognized in a survey of approaches used in the study of Central
Asian terracotta: "The necessity of studying the
representational rows of terracotta statuettes in connection with
the particularities of their production, which has been
recognized by Marshak, is only a part of the complex approach,
and yet it allowed the outlining new perspectives in the study of
this material."31 I would, however, formulate
it differently: since the laws governing the production of molded
terracotta have been understood, no conscientious scholar should
study this artistic medium without taking into consideration all
available statuettes or reliefs belonging to one stemma. Since
during the process of repeated reproduction the physical
characteristics of image changes (for example relief flattens,
little details become lost, other details being added by potters,
etc.), no stylistic analysis can be done prior to the building of
the stemmata. The same applies to the iconographic analysis,
because in trying to clarify degraded images potters often
altered significant details and even changed main attributes in
accordance to their level of understanding of iconography and
artistic skill. It is noteworthy, that the general principals
which should be applied to the study of molded terracotta are
very similar to those used in the manuscript analysis, with
stemmata and critical editions, or in numismatics with its die
analysis. In other words, only the building of stemmata based on
all known statuettes/reliefs turns molded terracotta into a
readable historical source.

Two Fragments of Hand-Modeled Reliefs from
Afrasiab

Although Marshak’s study incorporated only one group of
Sogdian terracottas - the figurines of horsemen, it allowed him
to recognize a similar pattern in many other series, and these
observations led to a crucially important conclusion about the
nature of Sogdian coroplastics as an artistic medium. Most
fascinating, however, is its "social" aspect - that
there were no special "coroplasts" specializing in
this area, and the molds were produced from time to time by
artists working in different media. The figurines which were
manufactured in relatively significant numbers32 were the
side production of potters, only few of whom bothered to order
high quality molds from professional artists, while the majority
were satisfied with the molds (matrices) made from terracottas
(patrices) sold by these few.

There were, however, exceptions to this rule. Two such
exceptions that will concern us here are constituted by the two
fragments of terracotta reliefs found in the first quarter of the
20th century on the site of Afrasiab and presently
kept in the Samarqand museum.33 Viatkin, who published them
first, did not pay any attention to the technology of their
production;34 but already Pugachenkova and
Rempel noticed their special significance as terracotta objects
with reliefs modeled by hand, without the use of a
mold.35

The first of the pieces is a fragment of thin terracotta slab
with an elaborate scene executed in low relief (Fig 1-2).
Unfortunately, only small fractions of the original composition
survived: the head of a ram - apparently the animal support of a
divine throne; the finger-board of a lute and the hand of a
musician playing this instrument; and the hand of a divinity with
some kind of shaft or scepter (?). These look to belong to a
scene showing an enthroned god entertained by musicians, in very
similar iconography to the one found on the ossuary from the
environs of Shahr-i Zabs.36 The scale of the images on
the Afrasiab fragment, however, is smaller, which implies that
the image of the enthroned god entertained by musician was only a
part of a larger composition, like the one in a scene in the
upper left corner on the ossuary from Sivaz.37

This fragment would not deserve special attention
except that all the major sculptural volumes of the relief are
modeled by hand and then retouched with a knife. A round dip in
the middle of ram’s twisted horn is made by the rotation of
a small pointed tool (a little stick?). There are no traces of
the use of mold or any stamped decoration except for the
impressions of a hollow tube found on two small adjoined clay
tablets, remotely resembling barbotine decoration, which
are situated near the edge of our fragment. It is clear that the
artist responsible for the relief on this fragment used a number
of technical devices documenting his good knowledge of clay as an
artistic medium and revealing a very professional, sure and
fluent hand.

The image on the second fragment represents a man and a woman
sitting in an arched niche (fig. 3-5). The figures are partially
modeled by hand and partially carved from the clay wall, which in
this place was originally thicker. It is possible that the head
of the female personage, of which only lover part survived, was
modeled from an additional adjourned piece of clay. The torsos of
both personages and their hands down to the elbows are shown in a
relief, but the forearms are modeled by pulling clay from the
wall and stretching it to form a cylinder. There was, however,
not enough clay to pull out and this shortage of material led to
the obvious disproportion: the forearms are twice shorter than
the upper part of the hands between the shoulder and the elbow.
In order to model the fists, the artist flattened out and then
rolled up the ends of forearm cylinders.The fingers on these
fists were cut-drawn by a sharp object. Folds on the sleeves were
made by knife cuts, while in order to reproduce the elaborate
drapery outline of the hem of the female dress the artist used a
knife and some additional pointed instrument (a little stick or
awl). All jewelry on the female figure, as well as some kind of
dumb-bells held in her hands, are represented by small balls
rolled separately. The dagger in a sheath with two scabbards for
suspension, which lies on the man’s lap, was modeled
separately as well. The carpet with its design of a multi-petal
rosette-star is all carved, with the exception of six circles in
the central field made by pressing the hollow tube. Although the
artistic level of this fragment appears to be somewhat lower than
the one displayed in the previously described relief, it also
betrays a professional hand using sorts of technical know-how
very similar to those employed in modern Samarkand pottery-shop
specializing in the production of small hand-modeled terracotta
souvenirs.

Since the fragments are hand-modeled, it is absolutely clear
that both the design of their reliefs and their production were
the work of a single person. Yet the artistic level of both
reliefs is much higher than the usual one displayed by figurines
and other examples of hand-modeled terracotta produced by simple
craftsmen. In other words, we have here the work of professional
artists working in clay, i.e. the coroplasts. Does this
contradict Marshak’s statement that Sogdiana had no artists
specializing in this medium? I believe that it does not; but in
order to explain why not, we need to place both artifacts in
historical context, investigating the social environment of the
original objects they belonged to, the locus of their find and
the historical framework.

Function of Afrasiab fragments and their social
context

It is not by a mere chance that the closest analogies to at
least one of our fragments are found among Sogdian ossuaries.
Indeed, the main physical parameters of the fragments, such as
the thickness of the straight (non-curving) walls and the scale
of the reliefs would fit an ossuary quite well. On the other
hand, no other category of Sogdian ceramic objects is known to be
decorated with reliefs depicting such complex compositions. In
other words, it is more than plausible that both Afrasiab
fragments are the parts of the side walls of ossuary
chests.38 This means that we should
interpret extraordinary features of these reliefs with regard to
the special functions of ossuary decoration. We know that
ossuaries were established in mausoleums39 and were fairly
regularly visited by relatives of deceased.40 In other
words an ossuary combined the functions of a receptacle for the
human remains and those of a funerary monument.41

This combination of two functions calls to mind sarcophagi, in
particular, Roman ones. Such a parallel with a distant, but much
better studied, category of the objects of material culture may
help us to understand some of the salient features of Sogdian
ossuaries. As a funerary monument, both the Roman sarcophagus and
the ossuary at least to some extent reflected the particular
tastes and interests of the people commissioned them for their
deceased relatives. In order to satisfy an individual demand, the
mass production of sarcophagi often involved two different
principal stages. For example, in the second and third centuries
A.D. some large shops prepared semi-fabricates, which were
sufficiently diversified to satisfy the most common variations in
public taste. These partially finished sarcophagi carried
completely executed reliefs belonging to one of the several
popular iconographic schemes, but also included an unfinished
section where a superior artist of the shop would make a portrait
of the deceased person after the sarcophagus was
purchased.42 For example, in the
iconography representing the birth of Venus, Ichteocentauri and
Nereids surrounding the central shell would often be completely
finished, while the space inside the shell itself would be left
untouched until the very moment of the purchase, so that the bust
of Venus could be given the features of the deceased
woman.43

Something quite similar happened during the production of
Sogdian slab-molded ossuaries, such as those found in the
necropolis of Durmen-tepe.44 The sidewalls of the
rectangular chests of Durmen ossuaries and the slopes of their
pyramidal covers were decorated with impressions from large
slab-molds designed by a professional artist.45 Yet the
three dimensional image of girl’s head surmounting one of
the covers, which undoubtedly meant to represent the deceased
person, was modeled by the potter who actually produced this
ossuary - it displays much lower level of artistic
professionalism than the molded images on the side walls of the
ossuary chest itself.

If the head on the top of the cover reflected an individual
order, then it would be only natural to expect that some clients
had preferences in terms of the themes of the reliefs decorating
sidewalls of ossuaries as well. It is very likely that an attempt
to satisfy such demands by providing several choices is reflected
by the different types of ossuary reliefs found in
Biya-Nayman46 - they include at least five
distinct designs forming one coherent stylistic group undoubtedly
betraying the hand of one and the same artist.47 This latter
example reflects approximately the same sort of relations between
craftsman and patron as the one suggested by the existence of the
aforementioned prefabricated sarcophagi with several standard
iconographic schemes.

We can further say that the two hand-modeled ossuary fragments
from Afrasiab were different from both previous cases in that the
artists who produced them could freely create compositions
responding to the individual requests of patrons. Such a work was
certainly more time-consuming, and required much higher
qualifications, than the work of an ordinary potter who simply
used in his work acquired (or copied) slab-molds. Thus, too, the
individual hand-modeled ossuaries ought to have been more
expensive.

This consideration explains why we find hand-made reliefs of
high quality only on ossuaries out of the entire corpus of
Sogdian terracotta: these bone receptacles greatly ranged in
quality, material and consequently price. A Chinese chronicle
tells us about the golden urn containing the remains of the
parents of Chach ruler, which once a month was set up on a throne
and venerated.48 Rapoport showed that the
Khorezmian silver plate found in the village of Bartym carries a
depiction of this latter rite.49 The complex figural finial
surmounting the ossuary depicted on this dish is certainly made
out of metal - judging by the way it is adjusted to the cover and
its complex form, which no other material would keep, both
testify to it. Given that the ossuary on the Bartym dish is shown
as resting on a lion throne, it too ought, like the one which
Chinese chronicle mention in Chach, to be made out of a precious
metal. These few mentioned facts testifying to the existence of
bone receptacles made out of precious metals imply that the
weighty corpus of terracotta bone ossuaries presently known to us
represents only the cheapest sector of the once existent broad
spectrum of such objects.

Some ceramic ossuaries seem to imitate the decoration of more
expensive metal receptacles. For example, a crowning element very
similar to the one shown on the dish from Bartym, appears on
slab-molded ceramic ossuaries from Biya-Nayman, where it is added
"by hand" to the very top of the pyramidal
cover.50 A similar conclusion can be
derived from the very "metallic" treatment of the
drapery on the reliefs of the ossuary found at Durman-tepe. This
earliest of the Sogdian slab-molded ossuaries appears to be
derived from a metal model, most likely made of silver, which in
turn was a replica of a Bactrian chest loosely based on a
Byzantine model.51

Once we establish the fact that ossuaries greatly varied in
material and price, we can try to estimate the position of the
ossuaries with hand-made reliefs. Most likely, these occupied the
middle of the spectrum, above most ceramic ossuaries, but below
metal ones. The latter consideration could also explain why
ossuaries with such high quality hand-made reliefs were so much
rarer than the more primitive bone receptacles and mass-produced
slab-molded ossuaries. Which, in turn, explains why only two
fragments with such hand made relieves have been found up to
date. On the other hand, it makes clear why the only case of the
high quality hand-made reliefs are not found among the terracotta
figurines, which were apparently the cheapest of all the
"idols," and why so far this technique have been
recorded only on ossuaries.

Locus

The consistency of ceramic mass, form, manufacturing technique
and decoration of ossuaries found in each of the known Sogdian
cemeteries shows that in most cases ossuaries were produced
locally. This fact leads to an important conclusion. We know that
the majority of Sogdian potters were oriented toward the needs of
settlements of a rather modest size. With the exception of the
capital Samarqand and, possibly, Bukhara,52 the known Sogdian
cities had an area of between 10 and 25 hectares.53 Partial
archaeological excavations and demographic extrapolations based
on them have allowed scholars to suggest population figures
between 3000 and 8000 for Sogdian cities of these
sizes.54 Taking the average life
expectancy in medieval society at 30 years,55 we may
calculate that such a city needed 2 to 5 ossuaries per week, with
the exception of such troubled times as when a town was
devastated by an epidemic or warfare.

Several factors would certainly work towards the further
reduction of this already insignificant figure: (1) not all the
people were buried in ossuaries: in some cases large storage
vessels were utilized, while in others the burials were made
without any receptacle at all; (2) very often remains of more
than one deceased were placed in one ossuary; this was especially
common case with infant burials (although there is little doubt
that the infant mortality rates were very high,56 very few
children ossuaries have been found to date); (3) as we could see
earlier, the nobility apparently used ossuaries made of more
expensive materials than pottery; (4) certain sections of the
Sogdian urban population consisted of foreigners and
practitioners of non-local confessions who followed different
funeral rites.57

In other words, the population of an ordinary Sogdian town
could not support a sufficient demand that could call to life a
specialized ossuary production. We can suggest, then, that
ossuaries were manufactured by potters along with storage jars,
tableware and other types of ceramics; and this conclusion is
strongly supported by the quality of decorum found on known
Sogdian ceramic ossuaries, which in the vast majority of cases
testifies to the very low artistic skills of their producers.

The one, if not the only, exception could be the capital city
of Samarqand. By the middle of the 7th century this
city spilled over the third wall protecting the territory of 70
hectares58 and it is very likely that
by the early 8th century it reached the lines of once
abandoned ancient fortifications (the so called fourth wall),
thus embracing an area of 220 hectares.59 Even if we keep to the
first of these two figures (70 hectares), we can suggest a
remarkably high population figure somewhere between 17, 000 and
27, 000 inhabitants. This concentration of human mass may have
been sufficient for generating a demand for the specialized
ossuary production. On the other hand, since an ossuary, as we
could see earlier, combined the utilitarian function of bone
receptacle with one of a funerary monument, it would be only
logical to expect such a specialized shop to employ a
professional artist. Thus, the locus of the finds themselves
could be used to explain, at least partially, the exceptional
features of our two fragments.

Time frame

The iconography of the composition depicted on the first
relief finds close parallels in the scenes decorating two
aforementioned ossuaries from the Kashka-darya
valley.60 These two ossuaries should
be placed in the very end of the stemma of the development of
slab-molded ossuaries,61 and thus can be dated to the
end of the 7th century at earliest.

As to the second fragment, the earliest instance of similar
composition, with the frontal representation of the sitting
male-female couple can be found on the famous Tokharistian bowl
with the deeds of Hercules, which was found in Perm province,
which can be securely dated to the 6th or even more
likely, to the 7th century.62 Another instance is
found on the coins of one of Chach principalities
(Kabarna-?),63 which on paleographic
grounds can be dated to the second half of the 7th
century at earliest. In Sogdian art very similar compositions are
known in a Panjikant painting of the early 8th
century64 as well as on an ossuary
fragment that can tentatively be attributed to the same
time.65

Furthermore, a dating based on these iconographic parallels is
supported the depicted realies, in particular by the dagger
sheath which belongs to the well known type with two scabbards
for suspension.66 Yet the design of the
"carpet" narrows this date down to the very end of
the 7th century at earliest.67

Accepting these dates, we place both ossuary fragments into a
very dynamic period of Sogdian history, that is characterized by
rapid economic development evidenced by the

dramatic increase in the number of centers having independent
copper coinages in the second half of the 7th
and the first half of the 8th century. While this fact
alone could be explained in various ways, it relates to the great
increase in the saturation of the archaeological strata with
coins. Together these two facts prompt a conclusion that in the
second half of the 7th and the first half of
8th century the development of Sogdian monetary
circulation reached its highest point in pre-Islamic times. And
since Sogdian copper coins circulated mostly locally and were
undoubtedly intended for the daily retail trade, the numismatic
point testifies to the significant development of internal trade.
The scale of economic growth in Sogdian craft and internal trade
was so significant that it was not even interrupted by the
hardships of the Arab conquest, during which some Sogdian towns,
like Paykand, were razed completely and had to be rebuilt from
scratch, while others, like Panjikant, were partially abandoned
by their inhabitants.

As, by the end of the 7th century, Sogdian society
reached its new high level of development in craft and internal
trade, it is reasonable to suppose that its ceramic production
could also approach a new stage requiring a higher degree of
specialization. In other words, it could well happen that certain
ceramic shops began concentrating on ossuary production at this
very moment. Such a process, documented to date only by the finds
of the two ossuary fragments, may eventually have led to the
appearance of separate coroplastic craft, like the one that in
Rome was concentrated on the via sigillaria. This
development, however, was interrupted in the very beginning; for
with the Arab conquests and subsequent Islamization of the
society, the need for coroplastic production certainly
dramatically declined. By the end of the 8th century
we find neither ceramic figurines of Sogdian gods nor elaborate
ceramic ossuaries, although the production of figural vessels
with molded designs greatly developed in some towns, such as
Paykand in the Bukharan oasis, and production of ceramic figural
toys continued. In fact, figurines of animals and fantastic
creatures never completely ceased to exist in Central Asia. The
wording used in a description of the Makh bazaar in Bukhara,
where twice a year "idols were sold,"68 shows that
the very fact of the existence of ceramic figurines, which once
constituted the most common type of portable devotional
sculpture, had been completely forgotten at least by the
12th century.69

Conclusion

The two fragments of terracotta reliefs from Afrasiab stand
out from the rest of the known Sogdian coroplastic production in
that they were made by highly professional artists working in
clay. On first glance, their very existence seems to contradict
the most important "sociological" conclusion reached
by Marshak in the course of his study of Sogdian terracotta
figurines, namely that there was coroplastic in Sogdiana, but
there were no coroplasts. Yet the the social and cultural
context of these reliefs (which once constituted the front walls
of ossuaries), the locus of the find (the Sogdian megapolis of
Samarqand), as well the chronological framework (the period of
the rapid development of trade and craft) of these two
"exceptions," show that they appeared as a result of
rather specific conditions and probably mark the beginning of
never completed process - the separation of coroplasitcs from the
general pottery production and its development into the
independent art/craft.

G.A.Pugachenkova, L.I.Rempel’. Istoriia iskusstv
Uzbekistana s drevneishikh vremen do serediny deviatnadtsatogo
veka [The History of Arts in Uzbekistan from the Earliest Times
to the Middle of the I9th Century]. Moscow: Iskusstvo,
1965

16. The results of
this work were presented only in a brief publication in the genre
known in Russia as "tezisy doklada." The literal
translation of this word combination is an "abstract of
paper." One should, however, keep in mind, that because of
the limited publication opportunities in the former Soviet Union,
this genre of short publications developed in a very specific way
- "tezisy doklada" were fairly brief (2-3 pages)
coherent texts containing all the major ideas of a talk, all
supporting materials and even brief references to the necessary
literature, which could be easily understood by those working in
the field. Not only the participants of a particular conference,
but the entire scholarly community would read them and would
normally use the scholarly results presented in this abbreviated
form with appropriate references to such short publications. In
other words, "tezisy doklada" were quite different
from the very short "abstracts of papers" as usually
understood by conference organizers in Europe and the USA,
although similar qualifications are observed by the organizers of
some conferences such as, for example, the Annual Byzantine
Studies Conference and the Annual Central Eurasian Studies
Conference.

17. Explaining this
methodology of terracotta studies in the early1980s, Marshak
suggested to me a more precise "formalized" method of
tracing the genetic connections between the terracotta figurines,
one based on the observation that the armpit depression is the
only part of the figurine that is "never" altered by
the potters. It is, however, rather hard to formalize this
property, for the armpit depression is undoubtedly one of the
most amorphous elements in a figurine. Yet Marshak proposed that
it still could be recorded by putting the figurines under the
light of a lamp established under a certain angle and by
registering the shape of the shadow in the armpit depression. I
can personally testify that this rather amusing labor-intensive
and equipment-requiring method worked perfectly within the
Hermitage collection. I suspect that nowadays this property could
be better recorded with the help of a laser, although it would
still be time-consuming and tedious.

25. By the time when
Marshak did his work, two books [Trever 1934; Meshkeris 1962] and
several dozen article-length studies on Central Asia terracotta
had been published.

26. Developing an
English terminology suitable for the study of molded terracotta,
Nichols suggested that all figurines or reliefs derived from one
archetype should be designated by the term "series"
[Nichols 1952, 219-220]. Yet, regardless of whether notion of
progression is involved, the word "series" implies
certain linearity: either linear vertical development from the
archetype down to the last reproduction or linear horizontal
"listing" (with or without diversification) within
one generation. Meanwhile, the graph of terracottas derived from
one archetype almost invariably looks like a fairly complex tree
with multiple branches. This consideration forces me to use the
term "stemma" rather than "series."

27. Among these are
the only two books devoted to Sogdian coroplastics in general
[Meshkeris 1977; Meshkeris 1989]. The same can be said about
practically all article-length works devoted to the terracotta
figurines of Sogd and Bactria-Tokharistan (never having to
compile a full list of such works, I am consequently unable to
count all of them; yet the figure mentioned in a survey article
by Dvurechenskaia [2000, 153-4] - of about 250 publications and
studies - looks right to me; roughly, some three quarters of
these studies were published already after the appearance of the
Marshak’s work). The only special general article on
Khorezmian terracotta, by Vorob’eva, shows an acquaintance
with Marshak’s conclusions [Vorob’eva 1981, 185], but
does not employ his method of analysis. None among two dozens
other studies discussing Khorezmian terracotta reveals any
knowledge of (or interest for) the method introduced by
Marshak.

32. According to the
Tarikh-i Bukhara "twice a year for one day there was a
fair" in the place called Bazar-i Makh and "every
time there was this fair idols were sold in it. Every day 50 000
dirhams were exchanged (for the idols)." [Narshakhi-Rizavi
1939, 29; Narshakhi-Frye 1954, 20]. Even if the latter figure is
a mere exaggeration of an early Islamic writer, it still conveys
an idea that "idols" constituted a significant volume
of merchandise and that there was much money in this trade.

38. All scholars who
wrote about these fragments held the same opinion: [Viatkin 1928,
26], Pugachenkova and Rempel’ [1965, 162] and [Pavchinskaia
1990, catalogue entries 35 and 39].

39. A small
mausoleum where ossuaries were established was called in Soghdian
’sks’k [Livshits 1979, 57, footnote 9; cf.
Grenet 1984, 36]. Sogdian Christian texts used the word
frwrtqty (literary the house of the dead) to designate
burial structures [Gershvitch 1975, 208]. The modern scholarly
literature, however, customarily employs Christian (Greek and
then Syriac) word ‘naus’ derived from Arabic texts
mentioning these Sogdian structures. About the history of the
term ‘naus’ see: [Borisov 1940].

40. For example,
Biruni relates that during several days at the end of the year
the Sogdians "put out food and drinks for the dead like the
Persians during the Farwardajan" [Biruni - Sal’e
1957, 255]. Meanwhile, describing rituals of Persians he says
that Persians brought food "to the nauses of dead"
[Biruni - Sal’e 1957, 236] and describing the same rites
among the Khorezmian he also specifically mentions that these
offerings were made in nauses [Biruni - Sal’e 1957,
258]

41 This found its
reflection in the way, how the decoration is placed on Sogdian
ossuaries. On many, if not on the majority, of Sogdian ossuaries
images and ornamentation is limited to one long side, which
implies that only one side was visible during the rituals
connected to ossuaries - were the images and the ornamentation
meant to be seen during the funerary processions, they would be
found on all four sides of an ossuary. This interesting fact was
noticed and correctly explained already by Poslavskii [Poslavskii
1903, 42].

45. There were
certainly ossuary reliefs molded with matrices, which were
already two or three generation apart from their archetypes. On
the other hand, there were some cases, where craftsmen with no
artistic skills tried to imitate the work of a professional
artist. One such instance is the second type of Ishtikhan molded
ossuaries [Pugachenkova 1984, 81].

47. It can be
clearly seen, for example, in the manner of the execution of
drapery, in particular in the very specific crescent-shaped
"incised" folds on the lower parts of caftans. Out of
the entire corpus of Sogdian terracotta (or at least, as much as
I know it), such a manner of depicting drapery appears on only
one statuette -- unpublished -- from Tashkhodzhaev’s
excavations on Afrasiab (1973 or 1974), which I saw in the vault
of the Samarqand Institute of Archaeology in late 1980s.

54. See for example:
[Belenitskii, Bentovich and Bol’shakov 1973, pp. 256-68,
esp. 259-61]. A passage about the realm Bi (the city of Paykand
in the Bukharan oasis), found in the Chinese chronicle Beishi
[Chavannes 1903, 136, n. 8], provides us with a good opportunity
to check the results of such calculations. It gives the figure of
1000 families as the population of this polity. We do not have
any information about the size of a Sogdian urban family of the
time. Judging from the materials of tax registers, the medium
size of a contemporary Chinese family at that time was five
people [Kriukov, Maliavin and Sofronov 1979, 63]. Due to the
existence of household slavery and the relative prosperity of
Sogdian merchant class (which means lower infant mortality as
well as the existence of associated family members and servants],
a medium number of members in Sogdian urban household must have
been higher than a number of members in the medium family,
possibly as many as eight people. In other words, the population
figure of 1000 families translates into somewhat between 5000 and
8000 inhabitants. One thousand families in the Chinese text
certainly constitute a round figure, and since it most probably
based on the information provided by Paykand
"embassy" of 609 C.E., we can expect it to be
somewhat higher then the actual number of families in Paykand.
Meanwhile, we know that the external wall of Paykand surrounds an
area of 21 hectares. From Arab geographers and detailed
archaeological survey of the environs of Paykand, we know that
this town, situated in a tiny oasis, had neither developed
suburbs nor an agricultural zone around it [Naymark 1992, 170-7].
Taking the density of population at 250 people per 1 hectare,
which was characteristic for Near Eastern cities with two-storey
build up [Bol’shakov 1984, pp. 98-106, esp. 106], we can
arrive at the figure 5250, which falls within the bracket
provided by calculations based on the information of the Chinese
sources.

56. In typical
pre-industrial societies, no more then 50% of children born lived
beyond the age of fifteen [Bol’shakov 1984, 138]

57. A Syriac
inscription found in a dwelling [Paikova and Marshak 1976] and a
pendant cross found in a grave [Belenitskii et al. 1977, 559;
Belenitskii, Marshak and Raspopova 1988, 177-178] testify to the
existence of a Christian community in Panjikant, while two
Brachmi inscriptions [Vorob'eva-Desiatovskaia 1983, 47-48, nos.
51, 52] and a terracotta icon [Marshak and Raspopova 1997/8]
register the presence of Buddhists. A separate shrine with a
large sculptural image of Shiva holding Parvati on his lap and
sitting on bull Nandi, which was set up in one of the rooms
surrounding the external yard of Panjikant Temple II, has been
interpreted as a Hindu sanctuary [Shkoda 1992]. We know of the
existence of a Christian church in Bukhara [Narshakhi - Frye
1954, 53]. As to the capital city of Samarqand, it had a
Christian metropolitan see [Barthold 1964a, 272, n. 52]; at some
point was considered to be a major center of Manichaean faith;
and judging from epigraphic finds, had some Indian population
[Vorob'eva-Desiatovskaia 1983, 48, no. 58].

64. A painting on
the western wall of the hall 3 in sector XXI [Belenitskii 1980,
118]; a more complex version of this composition with two
additional male figures sitting behind the male-female pair was
discovered on the eastern wall of the hall 6 in sector III
[Iakubovskii and D"iakonov 1954, Pl. XXIV; Belenitskii
1980, 55].

65. It is kept in
the Oriental Department of the State Hermitage Museum, inventory
no. SA-3028. Only a very basic sketch of this most interesting
fragment has been published [D"iakonov 1954, 133, fig. 5].
The molded image of the pomegranate tree depicted in the second
square on this fragment is very similar (stylistically and
technically) to the images on the pottery from Kafyr-Qala
[Marshak 1961, 194-6, pl. 10-11; Belenitskii 1968, 79], which
firmly dates to the very end of the 7th and early
8th century [Marshak and Krikis 1969, 58; Raspopova
and Shishkina 1999, 72].

68. This account
about the Makh bazar is found in the Persian
version of the Tarikh-i Bukhara [Narshakhi-Shefer 1892,
18-19; Narshakhi-Rizavi 1939, 29; Narshakhi-Lykoshin 2003, 136;
Narshakhi-Frye 1954, 21], in the section, which was compiled
either by Qubawi (522 A.H./1128-9 C.E.) [Sukhareva 1958, 7-12] or
by Muhammad b. Zufar b.‘Umar (574 A.H./1178-9 C.E.)
[Frye-Narshakhi 1954, xii-xiii]. Whichever of the editors was
responsible for composing of this description, he credits the
information to the earlier, non-extant, work Khaza’in
al-‘ulum, by Abu’l Hasan ‘Abad al-Rahman b.
Muhammad al-Nishapuri, of whom we know literary nothing except
that his book contained quite a few legends about pre-Islamic
Bukhara.

69. The Tarikh-i
Bukhara says that Makh "ordered woodcarvers
(drudgar) and painters (nakkash) to make idols
(but) every year." There is no mention of
potters.